Multicolr Search Lab

This neat little app allows you to search for photos on Flickr based on colour selections. Quite awesome, frankly.

http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr/

USPS Postal Price Calculator

Need to figure out how much it will cost to send something somewhere? If you prefer (or don't mind) using USPS, they've published a calculator to figure out rates for various locales, parcels (letters to packages), and speeds. Via Lifehacker.

http://ircalc.usps.gov/

Puppy Thursday!

Today we meet Beau the Golden Retriever!

http://www.dailypuppy.com/puppies/beau-the-golden-retriever_2009-02-27

thingpart!

I found this web comic, err, somehow (I can't remember right now). It's pretty sweet. The art style is very original and the humour is pretty smart. If you use RSS feeds, throw it in the mix. If not, why not?

http://thingpart.livejournal.com/

KeePass

This program is for anyone who believes in the mantra that you should use separate, good passwords for each website, program, or whatever, but due to laziness uses the same one or three or five passwords for everything.

The program stores your usernames and passwords in an encrypted database that you can unlock with either a master password or a key file. It can generate good passwords for you based on criteria. It even automatically fills in login information for you with the press of a hot-key! Now I have a different 15+ character password for every service I use, and I only have to remember one of them!

http://keepass.info/

On Chad and I's experience, we recommend you stick with the non-beta version 1 instead of version 2.

Two Men and a Woman

Yes, this link is merely a joke. I thought it was kind of clever.

http://www.tiggysribticklers.com/tig475.htm

Money as Debt

Here's a video I found on the rise of banking and how it works today. It appears that the claims proposed are a little controversial, so I won't say or pretend that this video is 100% accurate. However, I think it's a good way to learn a little bit more about the system we live in.



I apologise for the length. For some commentary from the forum in which I found it, go here.

The Einstein Quiz

This quiz purportedly was designed by Einstein as a test of problem-solving or some such. Took me a while to figure it out, but it's possible. I guarantee it!

http://www.amfrontier.net/~bree/Einstein.html

Knytt Stories

I've discovered that the readers of this blog generally enjoy the games that I put up here, so I'm going to recommend one of my favourite. It's an independent game called Knytt Stories.

The game is about exploration instead of killing baddies. If I recall correctly, the goal of the game is to find a machine that is outputting darkness into the world and flip off the switch. The soundtrack is pleasing and the artwork is lovely too. And the game is fairly short as well, if you're worried about it sucking your life away.

You can get it here. Yes, you do have to download this game. It's small and totally worth it, though. Give it a try. If you want to read more about it, Destructoid, a gaming blog that does an independent game section periodically, reviewed it a while back.

Puppy Thursday!

It's that time of the week again!

http://www.linkinn.com/_Cute_Puppy-eurion

3D Logic

This is a fun little game that I've had bookmarked for like two years now. It starts pretty easy, but the difficulty ramps up soon afterwards.

http://www.flashgames24.net/games/3dogic.html

Le Café

Zaney showed me this one last year sans subtitles. It just appeared on Digg with subtitles, so I'm posting it here for all to see. Absolutely hilarious.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6jluj_le-cafe-oldelaf-english-subtitles_music

The Trilogy Meter

Ever wonder what the general opinion of your favourite film trilogies is? No? Eh, me neither.

Personally, I thought they rated Jurassic Park 1 too low. And check out the trend in superhero films (with the exception of Batman, which tumbled the entire way).

http://dropular.net/content/_fixed/r6r7drbxbd_IwM8PIQ02jtoio9fQMkOLehto1_500.jpg

So Long to Affordable Concerts

It seems that Ticketmaster (a company that I maintain is truly evil) and Live Nation are looking at a merger deal.

This is distressing news for anyone who wants to go to concerts, live shows, or sports games. If you've ever purchased tickets from Ticketmaster before, surely you are familiar with the convenience charges and fees (why would you need to charge a fee to print tickets at home!?) that they levy on their customers. I paid close to $55 each for my $42 lawn seats at the Radiohead show at Blossom this summer. In addition, unless you are ready to pounce on tickets to big shows on the day that they become available, you won't be paying anywhere close to box office price; Ticketmaster permits scalpers to buy up as many tickets as they can, who in turn jack up the prices to exorbitant levels!

The worst part of the whole ordeal is that since XM and Sirius were allowed to merge last year, there's a much better chance of this receiving the green light than I would have originally imagined.

What do you think?

http://consumerist.com/5150795/ticketmaster-and-live-nation-agree-to-merge

Things I Learned from Left 4 Dead

This was on Digg, so I'd imagine that all concerned parties have probably seen it already. Nevertheless, I still found this pretty funny, so I'm posting it anyway. Anyone who hasn't seen this game yet, it's basically a survival zombie apocolypse game.

http://golden-silver.deviantart.com/art/What-I-Learned-from-L4D-105202937

Mr. Picassohead

Design your own Picasso-styled work of art!

http://www.mrpicassohead.com/create.html

Puppy Thursday!

Got some good ones today. I especially love the set with the pups growing up with their more diminutive friend.

http://www.freeple.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/image0011.jpg

http://www.dailypuppy.com/puppies/chaun-the-wolfhoundlabrador_2007-03-27

In the News Today...

It seems everyone's favourite background music distributor is subject to the falling economy too. Is no one immune?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7886024.stm

English Pronunciation

I Stumbled upon this back in December and posted it on Facebook. This poem of sorts really reveals just how convoluted English vocabulary and its pronunciation is. I mean, I knew we weren't terribly consistent, but this just takes the cake. See how far you can get reading it aloud to yourself before you trip over a word or phrase; "Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant" got me.

http://phd.pp.ru/Texts/fun/english-poem.txt

Font Conference

Either Drew or Chad sent me this originally. If you know anything about typefaces, this is pretty hilarious.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766

Test Your World Geographic Knowledge

This one is a fun little Flash game that has you place cities on a world map, which earns you points for accuracy and speed. See how many points you can rack up! My best is 184,492.

http://www.minijuegosgratis.com/juegos/hwdykyworld/hwdykyworld.html?fdef=85b4

The Human Calendar

While not very useful, this calendar is still a wicked cool idea. If you don't get it, look for today's date.

http://www.humancalendar.com/

Math Fail

Here's a video I caught wind of from a colleague. It's hard to believe that people like this work in customer service.

http://www.wimp.com/mathhelp/

Puppy Thursday!

I've decided that, from here on out, pictures of puppies will be posted on Thursdays. Why? 'Cause I like puppies.

http://www.erinvey.com/bark/2008/07/08/a-boy-his-dog/

- C.J.

Liven Up Your Background

I'm a big advocate of making your computer your own. While there are a ton of applications out there for this purpose (and they can be quite cool), most of them involve tweaking and time-consuming work. The easiest way to add some life to your desktop is with an attractive wallpaper image.

I've got a couple of favourite sites that I check regularly. interfacelift.com features daily high-resolution pictures of mostly landscapes, seascapes, and nature, although they post some macro shots and abstract stuff on occasion. And it's all available in a wide range of resolutions, wide-screen and standard.

For computer-rendered images, I usually check out digitalblasphemy.com and visualparadox.com. Both have high-quality pictures of a whole range of subjects, such as nature, people, space, abstracts, and fractals. It seems Digital Blasphemy is no longer completely free, but the artist still hosts a selection of his work in a free gallery.

Most people I think have heard of deviantART, an excellent website full of uploaded artwork of all sorts. They have a decent wallpaper section if you're into hand-drawn art.

Have Your Own Font

So my first sweet link is one I found on lifehacker.com (an awesome site in its own right). YourFonts.com turns your scribbles into a personal font! You simply download and print a PDF template, fill in the character boxes, scan and save it as an image, and upload it to their website.

I just got my font back, but it ended up misaligned, most likely because I printed to "A4" paper by accident. Doh! Otherwise, it looked sharp! I would recommend using a fine-tipped permanent marker, as I used a medium tip and some of my characters (such as $ and @) came out muddled. Their site seems to imply that pen alone wouldn't turn out so well either, so don't bother trying.

A New Blog!

Ah, so I'm jumping on the blog bandwagon, eh? What could I possibly add to the blogosphere? Not much, probably. I'm not the kind of person to go pouring out his heart at all the little things that might prompt such a reaction from others. Maybe every once in a while, but certainly not often enough to warrant a blog. So I needed a gimmick; at last, I think I've nailed one.

I spend a decent amount of time surfing the web aimlessly, and every so often I come across something worth checking out. "These points of interest should be shared!" thought I. So I've decided to post daily links to whatever I find that's amusing, interesting, perplexing, cute, etc. Think of it as my way to give back to the Internet (or something like that).

- C.J.

Post Scriptum: As for the title, yes, I used Latin. I enjoy flexing my classical muscles as often as possible. The translation? "These must be seen". (You see, it's a passive periphrastic construction. Very technical.) I scoured my dictionary for the Latin words for Internet, world wide web, website and other similar phrases to no avail. It fits nicely, I think.